life in fits and starts

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At least once a day this summer, I will notice a woman of a certain age out of the corner of my eye and think, just for a moment, that it’s my former mother-in-law. Maybe it’s the color of the woman’s hair as she moves briskly through the parking lot of our local farm market.Read more…

I saw a little piece of magic this weekend, right here on the Jersey Shore. Something that reminded me, not for the first time, that I am right where I’m supposed to be. The celebration of our nation’s independence stirs up a lot of emotions for me. I mean, when you’re divorced, all holidays kindaRead more…

It wasn’t until I went away to college that I learned firsthand that New Jersey, and its denizens, were a joke. Like, even my new roommate who hailed from Baltimore — BALTIMORE! — sneered at any mention of the Garden State. Apparently, it was an embarassing place to live. Even when we gather now asRead more…

Today I am thinking about how complicated life can be. And short. And confusing. You think you have all the time in the world to make things right. To tell people how much they meant to you. How much you loved them. But that’s not how it works and I am reminded once again there’sRead more…

I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Leo, or an extrovert or just a raging narcissist but I’ve always loved my birthday. I love being the center of attention. I’ve totally come to terms with it. And maybe it’s because I grew up with so many siblings and never had a proper birthday partyRead more…

I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but around here people tend to stick around. They buy a house, raise a family, send their children off into the world and then, quite often, the kids come back to buy their own house nearby and raise a family of their own and begin theRead more…

This week I posted the following on Facebook: It’s been a move months in the making. Actually, compared to the other three major real estate transactions I’ve participated in, this go round was not a knee-jerk reaction precipitated by a pregnancy and raging hormones. I seemed to have made many big decisions in my 20s and 30sRead more…

This is what happens when one of your worst fears is realized, which – come to think of it – seems to happen to me a lot. I got down to the beach late Sunday morning to spend the final day of the long holiday weekend with my toes dug in the sand and talkingRead more…

I don’t really love the 4th of July. I feel like it’s the summer version of New Years Eve. There’s like some weird pressure to have come up with fabulous plans to celebrate our nation’s independence, when all I really want to do is power wash my pool deck and read a book. There’s alsoRead more…

The kids had dinner at their dad’s last night and I have to say, that’s one of the few upsides of divorce. I love that at least one night a week I don’t have to come up with an answer to “What’s for dinner?” It’s also the one night a week I don’t have toRead more…

All about Amy

Amy is a humorist who writes about things like divorce, parenting slippery teenagers, mid-life dating (or lack thereof) and her irrational fear of tuna fish. A former journalist and online news editor, her personal essays have been featured in Family Circle magazine and on Scary Mommy and Grown and Flown. She told her story on stage of finding the courage to jump off the cliff of indecision into divorce at the 2015 production of Listen to Your Mother North Jersey and sits on the advisory board of Project Write Now in Red Bank, NJ. Amy has also appeared as a panelist on “MomsEveryday,” a syndicated, half-hour program airing in 55 television markets. When she’s not developing social media strategies and creating online content for her clients, Amy can be found Googling her next travel adventure and trying not to eat bread.